


Tell Me Where He Is

by Anonymous



Category: All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket
Genre: (minor) period-typical homophobia, Blood and Injury, Gen, Torture, no i mean like this is just torture, very dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 12:56:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29999682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A (slightly dramatized) interpretation of what happened the night where Theodora was kidnapped in SYBIS.
Kudos: 2
Collections: Anonymous





	Tell Me Where He Is

It didn’t really set in how much shit she was in for until the metallic taste of her own blood started filling her mouth. 

“You’re bleeding, Markson. Out of your mouth.” 

“Wow, really couldn’t tell. Thanks a lot. Thank god you’re telling me, I can’t taste, y’know,” 

Theodora laughed hoarsely at her own sarcasm, tilting her head back. She felt the blood trickle down her throat and immediately realized that she made a mistake. She started coughing onto the table, recoiling at the sight of her blood on the table in front of her. 

“Stop being sarcastic, or I’ll force you to,” 

“You can’t force me to do anything,” 

“I forced you to come here,” 

“That was Sharon,” 

Theodora felt rather than saw him standing behind her, cane in hand, ready to bring her a little closer to a broken nose. He was laughing. It was a horrible laugh. 

“I thought you were at least smart enough to recognize that I control Sharon. Or are you stupid in addition to being a homosexual?” 

“I’m certainly one of those, I’ll let you discern which one it is,” 

“In a funny mood, aren’t we? If it’s the blood that’s doing it, you’ll be a proper comedian in no time at all,” 

She felt the cane strike her face, square in the mouth and from beside her. For a moment, her whole face felt as if it was on fire and she couldn’t think of anything but the pain. Her mouth was burning hot and tasted like she had been shoved face-first into a bowl of spare change. She groaned and leaned her head on the table, the sickening knowledge that she was resting in a mess of her own blood overwhelming. How did she even get here? It was all so unclear. 

He violently pulled her head up by her hair, pulling it far enough that she was looking right up at the ceiling, presumably just for effect. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, she felt her blood trickle down her face, and her scalp hurt like hell. She saw his masked face look over her, blurry but still defined enough for her to know it was him, and even though masks hid emotion, she knew he was smiling seeing her pain. 

As if that wasn’t enough, he slapped her across the cheek before tossing her back towards the table. She barely even felt it, seeing as she was in enough pain already. 

“Stop,” she groaned, in barely above a whisper. She could barely see a thing anymore, and she was so disoriented that she couldn’t think of anything but her desire for it to all be over. 

“I’ll stop when you tell me where he is!” he demanded, raising his voice for the first time. 

That sentence triggered something in Theodora’s mind, something that absolutely terrified her: Lemony having to go through the same thing she was. He thought that he was so tough, better than anyone else (much better than his chaperone, of course). If he had the chance, he’d probably run into this room and say he could take it. 

“You’d kill him!” she protested. 

He laughed again, putting his hands on her shoulders. She shook them off as hard as she could, but he wouldn’t take them off. He was digging his fingers into her shoulders, which was somehow more painful than the slaps. 

“I’d kill you,” he said. “but the little boy? He knows too much to die.” 

“You’d kill me??” Theodora replied, turning her head to look at him. She was struck with fear, fear that she would slowly die in this room and no one would ever find her body. Did anyone care enough about her to even look?

“Ever self-centered, aren’t you?” 

“I’m sorry for being concerned about my own life,” 

“Back at it with the sarcasm? I thought I made you stop.” 

Suddenly his hand was wrapped around her neck, choking her. She started coughing dryly, a thin stream of blood flowing out from the corner of her mouth. 

“No,” she whimpered. She tried to move her hands up to her neck to stop him, but she remembered that they were tied to the chair behind her. 

He let her throat go, taking his hand off her shoulder as well. She gasped for air and coughed a little bit more. 

“I’d be surprised if you could even manage to talk back now,” he said. 

“I can still talk, just you see,” she attempted to say. She didn’t even recognize the words that were coming out of her own mouth, they were slurred and broken and so strange. 

“Well that’s an issue,” he mused. “I need you to talk to learn where he is.” 

He sat across from her at the table. She tried to focus her eyes on him, but they kept slipping away. 

“Here. Cough out the blood so you can talk to me,” he said, pushing something towards her. Trying to focus her eyes, she discerned that it was probably a handkerchief. 

“I can’t hold it,” she tried to say, her words messing up again. 

He seemed to know what she said anyway, as he shoved the handkerchief against her mouth. 

She knew she shouldn’t cough, that it would mean he could force her to talk, but she couldn’t take how horrible she felt. 

She coughed into the handkerchief, trying to ignore how absolutely awful this all felt. It hurt to cough, it hurt her throat and her mouth and her consciousness. She was told to cough until the blood stopped coming out. It wouldn’t stop coming out. She felt lightheaded and sick and worse than she ever had felt before. 

“Are you done?” he asked, more a demand than a question. He didn’t wait for an answer before taking the handkerchief away and spreading it out on the table. 

“That’s too much blood. Holy shit that’s too much blood. I’m gonna die, I’m reall-'' she started panicking. The handkerchief was almost all crimson, and there was something that looked like it might be a tooth in the middle of it.

“Stop being dramatic,” he responded. “Now, tell me where he is and I’ll stop. I’ll even give you a towel and some ice.” 

She opened her mouth to say what she knew, but then she closed it again. She would probably survive this, she hadn’t ever had worse per se, but she had been tortured before thanks to her VFD affiliations. Sure it would hurt for weeks after, cost her a lot of money in medical bills, and generally be pure agony for the whole time it was happening, but she would survive. 

Lemony might not survive. That’s why she was going through this, because even if he was a little bastard, he didn’t deserve to be tortured until he died. 

“No. I’m not fucking telling you, I don’t care what you do to me.” 

“You don’t care what I do? Well well, this will be enjoyable,” he replied, swinging the cane into his palm.

**Author's Note:**

> Theodora sucks, but at some point you gotta start feeling a bit bad for her.


End file.
